Cindy Knoke

Menu

Birds of the Far South (pt. I)~

There are lots of birdies in the southern hemisphere! They can fly where humans (and boats) flounder.
This osprey was the furthest north of all the birds pictured here. Ospreys are the most widely distributed bird in the world after peregrine falcons, and can be found on every continent except Antarctica. This guy was in Peru.
Magellanic Oystercatchers live on the tip of South America in Argentina, Chile, and The Falkland, Sandwich, and South Georgia Islands.
Peruvian Pelican’s are a near threatened species and are twice the size of their Brown Pelican cousins.
They can be found off the coasts of northern and southern Chile and Argentina. Standing next to them, they reached my shoulder!
These Brown Pelicans live as far south as the northern coast of Chile, which is where their territories overlap with Peruvian Pelicans whose distribution continues to the south.
This juvenile Black Crowned Night Heron,
was busy catching and swallowing a snake!
Cheers to you from the incredible birds of the southern hemisphere, and stay tuned for more, even further south~

It is often impossible to perceive size and perspective in photos of wild creatures, because there are no visuals around to reference them to, so sometimes I have to use words. So glad you understood! 💜

Wonderful close-ups! My daughter and I are working with a bird theme right now, I’m going to show her these photos. We picked up a new book about parrots today, that we are reading. I’m learning a lot! Thank you for a beautiful post/

Yes. They are fascinating. What is their story? Why are they abandoned? Where have they sailed? Who owned them? They bring up endless curiosity in me. It is especially amazing when you see one adrift mid-ocean, which I have seen twice. Once the ship I was on boarded the ship in the middle of the night.

Cindy, your wildlife photos are every bit as good as watching National Geographic — I always learn something, and this post is no exception. Thank you for showing me things I might never see for myself!

Every pelican is so peculiarly wonderful, but finding these Peruvian big guys who stood right next to me, and are almost endangered, like our SoCal ones, who were almost extinct, was pretty wonderful.
All this makes me love birds even more, somehow they can fly away, and seem to evade us, even at the brink of extinction.

If I was a fish (or a snake) those beaks would strike terror into me, not that fish feel terror in the way that we do, but still… those beaks, especially the pelicans’, must be capable of holding several fish at once.